So, you’ve decided that THIS is the year and you’re coming to the Edinburgh Festival, or you’re just coming on a trip to Blighty. What else can you do before/after apart from all the usual sightseeing in London? Well, how about going to see the recording of some TV and radio shows? Since coming to London five years ago I’ve managed to get free tickets for the following shows (and many others):
QI (Series D and the only episode ever not to have Alan Davies), Mock the Week (topical panel show hosted by Dara O’Briain also featuring a host of stand-up talent), The Charlotte Church show (yeah, I know, but I saw Amy Winehouse pissed and destroying Beat It before she was really famous), The News Quiz (long running weekly radio show hosted by Sandi Toksvig and a British institution), Chris Addison’s two radio adaptation of his comedy shows and an episode of his TV sit-com Lab Rats, Friday night with Jonathon Ross (I had tickets for Mock the Week but a very long queue and limited ticket allocation left me in the standby crowd and I was lucky to snaffle this), Dave Gorman’s Genius (the radio show before he got his TV version approved), Tim Minchin’s Christmas special for the radio, loads of classical music shows (very nice at Christmas time), lots of modern music shows (at Koko in Camden) and some Edinburgh Festival preview and compilation shows for cable.
So the variety is huge and the number of famous people who just might appear equally big, for example I’ve seen Clive James, Rolf Harris, James Galway, Adrian Edmondson, Graeme Garden, David Frost, Boy George, Jonathon Miller, Clive Anderson, Brian Sewell, Terry Wogan, Anjelica Huston, Simon Callow, the Sugababes et al and they are all free. Top shows like Have I Got News For You charge admission and are as rare as hens teeth. Some shows do a lottery as they are so popular and others need you to put your name on a mailing list to have a chance of getting in. Most shows allocate more tickets than there are seats, for the anticipated no-shows, so don’t expect you’ll get a seat just because you managed to get a ticket.
The venues include the BBC TV centre (White City tube), the BBC radio theatre (Oxford Circus), the Drill hall (Goodge St), the London Theatre (Waterloo), The (London) Pleasance (Caledonian Rd), Koko (Mornington Crescent), the Riverside Studio (Hammersmith and where all the early Dr Who was filmed), St Martin in the fields (Leicester Sq), Sky Studios (Osterley then a studio supplied bus!) and many others. There are shows just outside London and a few shows in other cities. I have been offered tickets for Pinewood Studios and Teddington and if you’re on the mailing list you’ll be offered free tickets to see stuff that no-one else wants to go to as well as the occasional bribes. I was offered money and snacks to see the Saudi Arabian version of the Cube (yes, in Arabic) and free beer at other shows. Just depends on how desperate you and the producers are.
The tickets all have a time when the doors open and how early you should be there depends on how popular the show is, (because of the over allocation of ticket to seat ratio) so, for something like Mock the Week you will need to be there at least an hour before the time on the ticket to queue up and make sure you get in and something less popular like Through the Keyhole (David Frost with C list celebrities) you can arrive at the ticket time. Once the outer doors are open and tickets checked/stickered, you will then be led into a waiting room and (usually) have a bar and snacks to buy before the studio doors open. Take a book if you’re on your own as there’s usually an hour for ‘lubrication time’, or of course you can mingle as there is a wide range of ‘regulars’ who attend these events from students to pensioners. A good rule of thumb for how long you’ll be in the studio is radio shows run twice as long as their broadcast time and TV shows at least three times as long. For example, when I saw Mock The Week they recorded at least ninety minutes of material, about twenty minutes of retakes and then there was all the camera moves so for a 30 minute show we were there for nearly two and a half hours. This can be important if you’re staying a long way out.
How to get the tickets? The most important site is BBC tickets which is an excellent site and constantly updated.
Other good sites include Standing Room Only for a lot of the commercial TV stuff, Lost in TV and TV Recordings for a few extra shows like Harry Hill’s TV Burp and Russell Howard’s Good News. Here’s one more for good measure (current QI tix are here) The Applause Store
They all ask for an address and phone number but almost all of the tickets are now by email so if you only have a hotel address, don’t let this put you off.